Two dimensional and three dimensional displays are well known to be made monochromatic displays. However, monochromatic does not offer the detail such as shown using red, green and blue colors.
Displays using liquid crystals have been proposed of generating color displays. See for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,359,345 and 5,724,062 to Hunter. However, these patents require arranging individual pixels in rows and corresponding columns, column 4, lines 36-39. The devices described can be expensive and complicated to manufacture, can have a narrow angular view ranges with low brightness.
Additional display systems have been proposed with similar problems to those described above. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,791,415 to Takahashi; U.S. Pat. No. 4,871,231 to Garcia, Jr.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,184,114 to Brown; U.S. Pat. No. 5,192,946 to Thompson et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,317,348 to Knize.
Several patents have been proposed for panel displays using two-frequency upconversion fluorescence. See for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,684,621; 5,764,403; 5,914,807; 5,943,160; and 5,956,172 all to Downing. The Downing ""403 patent appears to be the most relevant to the subject invention. Downing ""403 is primarily concerned with embodiments where the use different layers for red, green and blue emitters, abstract, FIG. 6, and briefly describes some mixing of only crystal type materials in a single display media. However, for the single display media, Downing ""403 uses nanometer sized particles, column 4, lines 33+, column 9, lines 42-45, which would inherently be difficult to form, handle and disperse in a display medium.
The first objective of the present invention is to provide an inexpensive system for forming two dimensional and three dimensional displays.
The second object of this invention is to provide a system for uniformly dispersing micron sized particles in a transparent host media for two and three dimensional displays.
The third object of this invention is to provide a two and three dimensional display media using dye doped plastics uniformly dispersed in a plastic transparent host media.
The invention covers uniformly dispersing particles of approximately 0.5 microns to approximately 50 microns in a transparent host display medium. The particles can be dye doped plastics, rare earth doped crystals, and the like, in display mediums such as plastic, acrylic plastic, and glass. The first preferred embodiment includes up to three lasers each emitting a laser beam at a different wavelength elected to excite specific groups of particles in the laser beam illuminated areas of the display medium. There are three different particulate types, with selected amounts of each uniformly dispersed in the display medium. One particle type when excited by a first laser beam emits a red visible fluorescence, a second particle type when excited by the second laser beam emits a green visible fluorescence, and a third particle type when excited by the third laser beam emits a blue visible fluorescence. The two dimensional display does not require a matched index of refraction between the particles and the display medium.
A second embodiment is for a three dimensional display having up to six laser beams, each being emitted at a different wavelength. Similar to the first embodiment, the display medium has a substantially uniform dispersement of red, green and blue particles therethrough. A pair of laser beams is directed so that the beams intersect at a specific location in the display medium. One pair of intersecting beams that excites a first particle type that then emits red fluorescence, another intersecting pair emits green fluorescence, and a third pair of intersecting beams with a third particulate type emits blue fluorescence. The three dimensional display requires a matched index of refraction between the particles and the display medium.
Further objects and advantages of this invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of a presently preferred embodiment which is illustrated schematically in the accompanying drawings.